Lawyer's daughter is exhibit A in pot-rights effort

When the call came, the nightmare kind that no parent wants to hear, Matthew Pappas got in his car and sped toward the hospital. On his way, he was on the phone with his wife, trying to get answers – until he heard her scream.

The phone went silent. And Pappas couldn't reach anyone.

"I thought my daughter was dead," Pappas said.

Then, in the early morning hours, on the lonely stretch of road between L.A. and Vegas, he pulled over, got out of his car, and walked into the desert. And he prayed. For hours.

Pappas is a lawyer who, these days, is passionate about what he does, though he says law wasn't always his cup of tea. His words. Even left it once, for something he found more fulfilling: computer software engineering.

But circumstances altered his path. People in pain need an advocate.

Especially his daughter.

•••

Pappas comes from a family of lawyers who encouraged him to pursue law.

After the L.A. native graduated from Western State University College of Law in Fullerton in 1994, he worked mostly on civil cases. He wasn't satisfied.

"It seemed to be all about money," Pappas said.

So Pappas and his wife, Divina, picked up their family – which now includes four children – and moved to Washington, where he went into computers.

But the recession hit. He lost his job. And he still had that law degree.

"It's important at some point to do what's right," said Pappas, 45, a resident of Lake Forest.

The niche he has carved out in his second stint as a lawyer is specialized. Pappas represents only medical marijuana patients.

Pappas doesn't smoke it. He wouldn't, he says, because he doesn't need it and has no medical prescription. But he knows people who do. And he wants them to be able to access their medication, just like others can buy prescription opiates at local pharmacies.

Today, Pappas has some 40 cases in litigation. One is under review to be considered by the United States Supreme Court. Another was, at one point, the lead case before the California Supreme Court, which on Monday ruled that cities and counties can ban medical marijuana dispensaries.

Pappas said Tuesday that the court's ruling will not affect most of his cases, which take the novel approach of citing the California Americans with Disabilities Act, a state law that is stronger than the federal law by the same name.

Charles Schurter, an attorney who works with Pappas and has known him since college, said: "The focus of this case (before the Supreme Court) was more about collectives than about patients. ... There is nothing in the opinion that allows cities to discriminate against disabled California residents. The patients will have their day in court.

"What we're doing isn't a matter of representing a client here or there," Schurter said. "What we're trying to do is effectuate change on a large scale, hopefully nationwide."

Pappas argues that by controlling marijuana, even in states that have voted to liberalize its use, the federal government is usurping the rights of the states. As proof, he cites the Federalist Papers, a dog-eared copy of which he carries every day in a soft, black leather briefcase.

"These papers are the warranty of the American people," Pappas said.

It's not his only historical touchstone. A copy of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union – the agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States – is framed on a wall in his donated Santa Ana office, where he runs the nonprofit Advocates for the Disabled and Seriously Ill.

"I see Matthew as a true constitutional scholar and as a lawyer of great integrity," said Stephen Downing, a retired L.A. deputy police chief who serves on the board of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a nonprofit group of criminal justice professionals who call for legalized regulation of all drugs.

In 1996, California voters approved the Compassionate Use Act, which allows patients with a valid doctor's recommendation to possess and cultivate marijuana. But the state law butts up against federal law, which prohibits marijuana use and sales. To complicate matters, there are contradictory decisions from the state's lower courts.

Most Orange County cities prohibit the dispensaries, yet hundreds still operate. Still, some cities have fought harder than others to close dispensaries.

Federal agents have swooped in to raid many dispensaries in Costa Mesa, among other cities. In Anaheim, a businessman is under threat of losing his building to federal seizure because he rented offices to two medical marijuana dispensaries. The Institute for Justice, a national law firm focusing on civil liberties law, joined Pappas this week in defending that business owner.

On the front line of this fight these days is Pappas. His clients call him things like "brilliant" and a "fighter" and "driven." The cellphone for one of his clients includes a special ring tone for Pappas' calls – a barking dog.

Pappas' No. 1 client, the client he's most driven to help, is his daughter.

•••

As a teen, Victoria Pappas struggled with her mental health, including serious bouts of depression. A friend suggested to her parents that she try cannabis to regulate her mood.

For Pappas, it was an epiphany. "I went from a person who really was skeptical of marijuana as a medication to someone who saw it work."

His daughter was doing well until 2011, when a stranger followed Victoria, then 19, out of a party. The man attacked the 100-pound woman, nearly killing her when he bashed her head into the ground.

Two years later she is thin and pretty. But her jet-black hair covers a thick, zipper-like scar that starts near her left ear and circles across the side of her head.

She battles severe neck pain and raging, weeklong migraines, among other medical issues.

Looking at her, she might fit the stereotype of a young person hitting a dispensary for a quick high. But that image would be wrong. Her father said: "For her, it's not a joke."

Victoria said she uses cannabis daily, and that she'd be unable to function without it. "You do not feel stoned, unless you overmedicate or take the wrong strain," she said.

Now 21, Tori, as she is called by her friends, works for her father's nonprofit. The attack and their battle to defend patients like herself has brought them closer.

Still, father and daughter have a somewhat difficult relationship, Pappas said. Ultimately, he wants to save her, and she wants her independence.

Meanwhile, Pappas continues his battle on behalf of his child and other seriously ill patients. "We measure our society by its ability to be compassionate, by its ability to equally provide," Pappas said.